The Shaft

The pantry was a small box of safety, but the air inside was rapidly heating up. Through the cracks in the door frame, Iris could see the kitchen was a swirling cauldron of orange and black. The island was gone, consumed by flames that reached for the ceiling like desperate hands.

She crouched on the linoleum, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The floor was hot to the touch.

She couldn't go back into the shaft; it was a chimney now, sucking smoke up from the basement. She couldn't go into the kitchen.

That left the dumbwaiter.

She looked back at the small, soot-stained door she had just burst through. The shaft was narrow, terrifying, but it went up. It went to the second floor. To the linen closet in the hallway.

The fire had started on the first floor. It would be climbing the stairs, racing up the walls. But the shaft was enclosed. Brick and plaster. It might buy her a few minutes.

Iris squeezed back into the wooden car. It was tighter this time, her body trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion. She grabbed the greasy cable again.

*Pull.*

She hauled down on the rope. The car groaned and lifted.

She pulled again. And again. Hand over hand, fighting gravity, fighting the friction of thirty years of neglect.

The heat rose with her. She could feel it radiating through the thin walls of the shaft.

She reached the second floor. The car bumped against the top of the frame.

She pushed against the door. It was stuck. Painted shut, or maybe just warped by time.

She kicked it. Her foot slipped, banging against the wood.

"Come on!" she screamed, her voice raw.

She braced her back against the rear wall of the car and drove both feet into the door.

*Crack.*

The latch gave way. The door swung out into the hallway.

Smoke poured in, but it wasn't as thick here. The fire hadn't reached the second floor yet.

Iris tumbled out onto the carpet, coughing. She scrambled to her feet.

The hallway was filled with a hazy gray fog. To her left, the main staircase was a funnel of smoke, the fire roaring below. To her right, the window at the end of the hall.

She ran for the window. She tried to open it.

Locked.

She grabbed a heavy vase from a side table and smashed the glass.

Cold, wet air rushed in, carrying the scent of rain and wet leaves. She leaned out, gulping it down.

It was a twenty-foot drop to the flagstones below.

She looked back. The smoke was getting thicker, darker.

She needed a rope.

Sheets.

She ran to the linen closet—the one she had just emerged from. She grabbed armfuls of the old, yellowed sheets she had found days ago. She tied them together, her fingers clumsy with fear. Knots slipping, tightening.

She tied one end to the heavy radiator pipe under the window. She threw the makeshift rope out into the night.

It dangled, swaying in the wind. It didn't reach the ground. It was ten feet short.

Better than twenty.

She climbed out onto the sill. She grabbed the sheets.

And then she heard it.

Below her, in the kitchen, a heavy crash. The ceiling collapsing.

And through the roar of the fire, the sound of the front door being kicked in.

"Iris!"

It wasn't a rescue. It was Julian.

He wasn't waiting outside. He was coming in to finish the job.

She slid down the sheets, the fabric burning her hands. She reached the knot at the end and hung there, her feet kicking in the empty air.

She looked down. The drop was still too far.

But she had no choice.

She let go.

She hit the ground hard, her ankle twisting with a sickening pop. Pain shot up her leg, white-hot and blinding. She bit her tongue to keep from screaming.

She dragged herself into the bushes, crawling through the mud, away from the burning house.

She reached the edge of the woods and looked back.

Julian was in the window she had just escaped from. He was looking down at the dangling sheets. He scanned the yard, his silhouette framed by the fire.

He knew she was out.

He turned away from the window.

He wasn't coming down the sheets. He was coming out the front door.

She held her breath as his footsteps passed right under the pantry floor.